Fire In The Ice
by LyricalRiot
Summary: Picking up after S8E3, Sansa deals with the fallout from the moment that passed between her and Tyrion in the crypt. M for lemons in Chapter 2. This will only be a 3 chapter fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Fire In The Ice**

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**Quick A/N:** I liiiiive! For anyone who has been following my Star Wars stories, don't worry, I have drafts prepared to finish them up ASAP. But I have to get this short little micro-fic out right now before my head explodes. Whenever I ship something this hard, I have to write about it so I can get it out of my system. This being a Game of Thrones thing, I expect all of this to be utterly irrelevant in 5 days when the new episode drops, but oh well. That's alright. I had fun writing this today anyway.

**Content Warning:** My other fics have pretty much stuck to a T rating. This one definitely has a solid M rating, even though I don't get as graphic as a lot of erotica in this. But there is sex in chapter 2, and this being GOT, it isn't treated with metaphors or allusions. But I promise to keep it tasteful nonetheless.

An important trigger warning I'll remind you of next chapter, remember that this features a character who has been raped, and that factors in to her experience.

Also there will (probably) only be 3 chapters, and they'll all be posted today. Enjoy! And please leave your reviews! (This fic pretty much only focuses on Sansa and Tyrion. If that ship bothers you, read something else.)

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**Chapter One**

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Preparations were underway, and even though the euphoria of survival still lingered over the ruined walls of Winterfell, an old familiar dread had begun to creep in. Those headed south were certain of their victory against Cersei, despite their tiny, ravaged numbers, but everyone knew that there would be some who wouldn't return. And as they prepared to leave, others still worked to clean up the thousands of dead scattered in and around the castle. A permanent cloud of smoke hung in the air outside the walls, born from the enormous pyre receiving all the corpses.

Sansa and Arya stood overlooking the courtyard, a now-familiar and now-comfortable silence between them. Sometimes it was still hard to believe they could be like this, considering their past. But then, neither of them were the people they were when they first left this place. Bran kept saying he wasn't Brandon Stark anymore. Sansa didn't know what he meant — she rarely knew what he meant — but she felt it herself too, deep down in her core. She was and always would be Sansa Stark, but she wasn't the same Sansa who endured the boring, stifling childhood in the North, who had not appreciated her happy upbringing while she had it.

And Arya wasn't the annoyed and annoying little girl who constantly thwarted the Septa's efforts to turn her into a lady.

"I know that you aren't coming with us," Arya said after a moment.

Sansa glanced at her, not fully surprised to hear this. She'd only told Jon, and he hadn't tried to change her mind. But secrets in this family had a funny way of swirling around anyway. "Did Jon tell you? Or was it Bran?"

Arya shot her an amused look. "Neither. I know you. You won't leave the North again."

A great departure from those early days when she couldn't wait to get out of here. What a fool she'd been. "I can't."

"I know." Arya turned to face her. She frowned. "I wish you could. I want you to have your own revenge against Cersei, after everything she put you through."

Sansa laughed. "I don't need my own revenge."

"How?" Arya's single expressive brow lifted dubiously. "What she did to you. What she let her evil son and her evil father and her whole evil family do to you."

"I learned a lot from her." Sansa glanced back down into the courtyard. "She's terrible, and cunning. She deserves what you're going to give her. But that isn't me, Arya."

"Yes it is. I know you're no stranger to revenge. Jon told me about what you did to the Bolton bastard."

Tyrion emerged down below, talking to Varys and gesturing to a few of the wagons. Sansa followed their movements.

"Ramsey got what he deserved. Cersei will too..." she paused and glanced at Arya. "Probably."

"You don't think we can do it?"

"I just don't think any of you should underestimate her."

They were silent again for a moment after that. Arya didn't know Cersei like Sansa did. That might be alright - she didn't need to know much about the Night King to dispose of him - but Sansa had a dread feeling in her heart, knowing some of her family was headed right into Cersei's game again.

She watched Tyrion move about the courtyard, and wondered if Cersei would finally succeed in killing him. She experienced a brief flash of distress at this thought, and pondered on it curiously.

Arya's watchful gaze steadied on her, and she glanced over at her sister again. "What is it?"

"I know they made you marry him, but what more do you to have to do with each other?" Arya asked, thrusting her chin at the pair below. "You watch him like you care what happens."

"What's with you and the smith?" Sansa fired back, more playfully than defensively. She'd seen how the muscular, battle-filthy smith had rushed immediately to Arya after everyone straggled back together in the aftermath of the Night's King's death. There had been a lot going on, but Sansa had seen that much at least.

"His name is Gendry," Arya said, a blush rising in her cheeks.

Sansa smiled more fully now, delighted to have found something to make the scary, stoic assassin Night-King-Slayer blush. "So you _do_ like him."

Arya shrugged, trying to put on a face of nonchalance. "We have history."

"Well, I'm happy for you." Sansa had never imagined that her tomboy little sister would ever get swept up in something as utterly girlish as romance, but there it was. It amused her.

"You don't disapprove of him just being a smith?"

"Arya. You really think that sort of thing matters? Now? After everything we've all gone through?"

"Not to me, but once upon a time it would have mattered to you."

"We've both changed a lot."

Arya motioned to the courtyard again. "You're evading. Tell me about Tyrion. He's a Lannister, Sansa. Or have you forgotten?"

Sansa rolled her eyes. "I think I know _that_ particular fact much better than you. Remember, Arya, I was still trapped there with all of them while you were scampering around Westeros doing...whatever you were doing."

Arya looked like she wanted to make some snappy retort, but reconsidered. She looked down into the courtyard and said quietly, "I didn't forget. You're right. I just don't know why there's anything redeeming about any Lannister."

"It's hard to fathom," Sansa acknowledged. "But he was the only decent one of any of them. He never tried to touch me. He was the only one who was ever kind to me during that time. Like you said, we have history."

And then there was more recent history too. The night in the crypt, and their wry conversation in the face of certain death. And what passed between them in that most harrowing moment before they decided to embrace death and fight to save as many as they could.

Sansa didn't really know what to feel after that.

"You deserve someone better," Arya said, wrinkling her nose.

Sansa drew in a deep breath and shook her head subtly. "I don't think there will be anyone ever again. Love is for fools. It makes people forget, makes them stupid."

"It tells them it's okay to drop their guard," Arya agreed. "I know."

"So don't go falling in love with this Gendry of yours. Besides, there are other things that happen between men and women that, trust me, you don't want any part of."

"I know about those things, Sansa," said Arya. When Sansa looked at her, she lifted her chin just a little. "It wasn't so bad. I'd do it again."

Sansa stared at her, uncomprehending. "With Gendry?"

"Yes." This time, Arya didn't blush at all. She had that cool, detached look on her face again.

Sansa bristled, her whole body filling with a flash of anger. "Did he-"

"No," Arya cut her off. "It was my idea."

Sansa's heart was beating too hard. She looked down into the courtyard again, at Tyrion and Varys and everyone else making ready to go South. Her head swam with mingled horror and confusion and annoyance. Her little sister had experienced..._that_? And chosen it? And would choose it again?

"Sansa," Arya prompted again. "It's alright. I'm an adult. I can make my own choices."

She still struggled to swallow her dismay, but Sansa had learned nothing if she hadn't learned to manage her emotions after all this time. So swallow it she did, and she turned to her sister with a nod of acceptance. "Good. Well, Winterfell needs an heir anyway. Jon's offspring will probably be the dragon queen's heirs. And we both know Bran isn't going to do it. So the task is up to you and this smith."

Arya laughed loudly, drawing a few stares from below. Sansa caught Tyrion's eye.

"I like him," Arya admitted, "but trust me, I'm the last person in the world who should be anyone's mother. I'm no one. It falls to you - you're the Lady of Winterfell, after all. Just tell me you aren't thinking of a certain little lion to use for that purpose."

The corner of Sansa's mouth curled up in amusement, and she slid Arya a sideways glance. "I'm not. We'll have to hope for a cousin left alive somewhere."

Arya grinned.

The silence stole their teasing away, and they looked at one another with a shared understanding that once again, they were about to be parted. It had taken six years for them to reunite last time. Would it take so long again?

"Be careful down there," Sansa said softly.

Arya rushed in and hugged her tightly. Sansa wrapped her arms around this little killer, and realized that though Arya might be a frightening assassin and thief of faces, an avenging angel, and the savior of humanity from an eternal night, she was still just Arya, her little sister. Tiny, fragile, mortal.

"Come home," she whispered.

"I promise," came the ardent reply.

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**A/N:** Okay, next chapter will be up in a jiff!


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

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Dinner that night was an urgently riotous affair. Everyone reveled in this final night — the Southerners talking about how nice it would be to get somewhere warm again, the Northerners getting thoroughly drunk in celebration that their guests would soon be leaving. Everyone had that same fevered desperation to savor life that they'd had every night since the battle. Deep within, each of them knew that they did not deserve to be alive when thousands of their brethren were dead. It made them eager to be rowdy and bawdy and pretend to be merry, as if trying to outpace the horror and guilt that shadowed the fringes of their thoughts.

The dais wasn't so boisterous. Jon and Dany seemed more awkward together than normal. Daenerys sat by Missandei and spoke to almost no one. Sansa knew she'd lost her most trusted advisor that night, and she wanted to respect the other woman's mourning. Besides, Sansa didn't have anything further to say to the dragon queen — there was only one thing she wanted, and Daenerys already knew what it was.

Arya had vanished again. She wasn't much one for these formal dinners. She ate from the kitchens and then went lurking about, as was her style.

Near her, Tyrion was twirling his glass of mead, but not actually drinking it. Normally he sat on Dany's side of the dais, but tonight everyone had just sort of arranged themselves however they arrived.

"I've never seen you turn down a drink," Sansa remarked quietly to him.

He glanced at her, setting his drink down with a look of frustration. "I find, oddly enough, that I don't want to be drunk tonight. Strange, I know. I'm not sure what to do with the feeling."

Sansa gave him a wry ghost of a smile but otherwise didn't say anything to this, just returned to observing the events around her. A servant girl who had been in the crypts slipped in to refill Sansa's cup. Seeing her face, clean and fresh and calm now, Sansa remembered how she'd looked down there, blood flecked across her cheeks, eyes wide and terrified. The memory hit her like a blow to the chest. She gripped the table's edge to steady herself.

Tyrion paused the girl before she retreated. "Wait, just a moment, please."

The girl averted her gaze quickly. "Can I get you something, m'lord?"

"No, I—" he seemed to stumble over his words. "I just want to know if you're alright."

Her eyes darted to him before quickly returning to the table. Her hands shook and she held the pitcher harder to keep it from spilling. "I don't sleep anymore. But I am alive, thanks to you both. So I suppose I'm better than most."

After that she quickly fled, before Tyrion or Sansa could ask her anything further.

Sansa's gaze caught his, and lingered there for a moment. They were the only armed people in that hellhole, and they'd been the only ones trying to save everyone else. It should have made them feel like heroes. But like everyone else who fought that night, they felt as if they'd been on the losing side anyway. The cost had been too high.

"Kind of you to ask her," Sansa said to break the unspoken thing flaring up in that long eye contact and silence. She looked back at her food.

"I have learned that there are no lords and ladies, no servants and peasants. There are only the dead, and the living. We living should all matter more to each other," he said, his voice hollow.

Something within her warmed. His kindness had always been one of his biggest redeeming qualities, even if he was a Lannister. How it hadn't gotten him killed yet was amazing. But then, he was a survivor. Like her.

She wasn't lying when she told him he was the best of them. Of all her husbands and would-be husbands, no one else had been anything like him. Joffery and Ramsey were cruel and sadistic. Robyn was a spoiled, infantile boy. No one had respected her or what she wanted, but he had. When she spoke, he listened. When others abused her, he stepped in.

By the Seven she _didn't want_ this feeling stirring inside her. She didn't want it at all. But it was there. And her heart was betraying her with little whispers of what it wanted. Had known it wanted since he kissed her hand in the crypt.

"Where's Arya?" Jon asked her from her other side, interrupting these thoughts.

"Lurking," Sansa said automatically, as she always did when someone asked her about Arya. But then something occurred to her, and she looked around the room, searching for the chiseled face of Arya's smith.

She didn't find him.

"What do we know about Gendry?" she asked aloud, for either Jon or Tyrion to answer.

Tyrion looked at her, surprised. "Who?"

Jon cleared his throat. "The smith who made all our dragonglass weapons. He also fought with me beyond the Wall, when we to get the wight to show Cersei. He's a good man. Brave, and honest."

Sansa took a small sip from her glass. "Arya said she knew him. They had history."

"Possible." Jon raised a brow at her. "None of us really know what Arya was up to all these years."

"Except learning how to kill Night Kings," Tyrion quipped.

"Why do you want to know about Gendry?" asked Jon, brow lifting. "I didn't think he was your type."

"He isn't," she said dismissively. "Is he going with you to King's Landing?"

"Yes." Jon looked truly intrigued now. It was nice to see him thinking about something other than the undead for once. Sansa might have smiled, if she weren't busy thinking about Arya.

Tyrion, sharp as usual, had already guessed. "They'll be chaperoned, if you're worried about it, my lady."

Sansa allowed herself a short laugh, and shot Tyrion a pointed look. "They don't need your supervision. Arya isn't a child anymore, and besides, you can't chaperone a faceless man. She's like smoke. She disappears and reappears as she pleases."

Tyrion chuckled and inclined his head to that truth. "Well, it was the worth the gesture, anyway."

Jon looked disturbed. "You think...Arya and Gendry...?"

Sansa thought he was a bit out of line questioning their little sister's relationship ideals when he had plenty to answer for himself. She frowned in an expression that she hoped conveyed this irritation.

"She saved all mankind from the Night King," Tyrion said cajolingly. "Don't she deserve to have a little fun with a handsome partner?"

"Gendry is Robert Baratheon's bastard," Bran announced from his place a few feet away.

Tyrion choked. Sansa's head swung to look at him, but he didn't wear anything other than his usual expression.

Jon frowned.

"Does Daenerys know that?" Sansa hissed at Jon, immediately knowing what his lack of surprise meant.

"No," Jon said. He fixed Tyrion with a hard stare. "And she doesn't need to. Gendry isn't trying to claim the throne. He isn't a threat."

Tyrion lifted his hands innocently. "No, of course not. And I won't be the one to tell her. But I can't wait to see the look of Cersei's face when she realizes one of Robert's bastards escaped her slaughter."

The image of Cersei popping up in her mind convinced Sansa that she had certainly had enough for one night. She stood. "I'm going to the library for a while before bed. If you need me, I'll be there."

Jon nodded at her. She caught Tyrion's eye and let it linger a moment too long, silently informing him that he could also find her there if he wanted.

Walking away, she wasn't sure why she did that.

The idea of Arya being with Gendry was...complicated for Sansa to think about, and had done effective work to unsettle her. On the one hand, she was afraid for her little sister. Jon said Gendry was a good man, but Sansa knew the games people would play to get others to think that. Then again, Arya could more than take care of herself. If Ramsey had tried to do to her what he did to Sansa, it wouldn't have been the dogs who got his face.

But then there was the idea of the act itself, which sent white hot barbs of pain and shame right through her stomach. But Arya had chosen it. And many women chose it voluntarily, even sought it out, and she didn't know why. She didn't want to know why.

Or maybe she did, and that was even more disturbing.

She needed to get on top of this situation. She would never be anyone's pawn again, and to avoid that fate, she had to be in control of herself at every moment. That meant mastering this internal storm and getting back to a place of calm certainty. Like she'd had before the battle for Winterfell, before Jon and the Dragon Queen and her entourage arrived.

Tyrion would leave tomorrow, and he'd take with him these threatening, confusing stirrings in her heart that had been born in the terrors of the crypt. And that was all she wanted. Right?

She probably should have gone to bed, but instead she went to the library as she'd announced. The new maester had been busy trying to reorganize it since the battle, but there was still work to be done. Sam and Gilly had been here frequently helping out, so Sansa was a little surprised and relieved to see they weren't now.

She picked up a stack of books and began to shelve them. Wights had been in here too, and knowing that made her skin crawl. Winterfell was supposed to be her home. Her safety. But it hadn't felt safe with Ramsey here and it didn't feel safe now. Once they got everything cleaned up and rebuilt, maybe it would feel like home again.

It would be a long time before she voluntarily entered the crypts again, though.

She was lost in contemplation when she heard the library door open and turned to see Tyrion coming in. He was alone. She quietly shelved the last book in her arms and then slipped out of the stacks so that he didn't have to search for her.

Tyrion looked around and sighed. "I remember the first time I saw this place. I was astonished by the amount of ancient texts you have here. Truly the Starks have been around since the dawn of the Seven Kingdoms."

"And before," Sansa said. "We're descended from the First Men."

Whatever she and Arya had been joking about before, they both knew that the House could not end with them. Their brothers might be dead, except for Bran and Jon, but House Stark was not without hope.

She sank into a chair at one of the tables. Tyrion joined her, pulling a chair close. "You seem melancholy this evening, my lady. Aren't you glad to see us all go?"

Sansa smiled a small, amused smile. "Most of you, yes. Your queen and her two sons, certainly."

"She's not so bad, you know. I think you two would be friends, if you gave it a chance." He said it, but his tone carried the full knowledge of what Sansa was, and what Daenerys was.

"I am perfectly willing to support her claim to the Iron Throne," Sansa said. "But she knows what I ask in exchange."

"You want her to be the queen of six kingdoms."

"I want the North. We deserve that much after everything, don't you think?"

Tyrion sighed. "It just so happens that I do think that, yes."

"You're her Hand. Do what you can to convince her."

He chuckled. "Is that what you invited me in here to discuss? You want me to champion your cause?"

"I do want that, yes." When his gaze flicked up to her, she held it. Blue eyes met brown, and memories surfaced again.

Tyrion softened. "I'll do what I can. I can't promise I can make her agree, but I promise to try."

"Thank you." Sansa's hand twitched towards him on the table, but she held it back. "You're a good man, Tyrion."

"People have called my many things, my lady," he laughed. "But they've never called me that."

"But you're wrong about something."

"A more and more common occurrence, unfortunately."

"I didn't invite you in here to talk about Daenerys or the North."

His heavy brow lifted, a small smile crooking in his beard. "Well, that's reassuring. Unless you want to talk about the crypt."

"No." A chill zipped through her. She would never, ever want to talk about that night again, if she could help it. Like the night of her second wedding, she was already pushing the memory deep into the furthest recesses of her mind. Sansa was no stranger to fear, but she had never felt anything like that. It went beyond terror. It went beyond anything Joffery, or Cersei, or Ramsey, or anyone had ever put her through.

But she unlike those other times, she hadn't been helpless. She had a weapon, and a partner no less afraid, but no less willing to fight beside her.

"Tyrion, I don't regret anything that happened, or didn't happen, between us. Before." She didn't really know how to talk about what was going on in her mind. She was a lockbox of emotion, except in those moments when it spilled out unprompted — like when Theon showed up to fight for her. This didn't feel like one of those times. This felt like prying open the lid of the box and forcing herself to reveal something of what was inside.

"You were a child," Tyrion said softly. "It was wrong, what they forced you into."

"But you never did." She drew a shaking breath. "And I have since learned how rare that is."

He said nothing for a moment, and she appreciated his silence. After a long moment, he ventured softly. "I heard that ours was not the only forced marriage in your life."

"No." She struggled to let him broach this topic. But something inside her needed him to do it anyway. "Ramsey wasn't…he wasn't like you."

"My lady—" he said, and it sounded like he was about to apologize, or convey how deeply sorry he was that happened to her.

She cut him off with a fierce look and a tiny shake of her head. "Don't."

He sucked in a long breath and nodded, his gaze falling to his lap.

Sansa hesitated once before reaching out and taking his hand. She didn't know what she wanted at this point, but she knew she felt comfortable in his company. There were few people who gave her that feeling anymore. Foolish as he was when it came to his own family, or the dragon queen, or a number of things, he still understood the game better than anyone else.

Jon certainly didn't. He thought she just cared about who holds what title. He'd never had to play the game. He only ever worried about the undead. He didn't know what she knew - that Cersei played better than anyone, and you were _always_ playing the game, even if you didn't know it. And what you didn't know could get you killed. Tyrion knew that. And rather than distrust him, she liked him better because of it.

Tyrion lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it softly. Sweetly. Like he did in the crypts.

"I have to admit, this feels an awful lot like a goodbye, my lady," he said.

Sansa let her fingers brush against the scar running down his cheek. "It is, I suppose. We will never see each other again after tomorrow."

"Don't say that. We don't know that."

"I do." Sansa didn't look away from his rueful gaze. "You're her Hand. You'll be bound to King's Landing, or wherever she is, always. And I will never leave the North again. Our paths won't cross."

"I would have thought you'd be the last person in the North who would regret never seeing me again," he said after a moment.

"Tyrion."

He held her hand tightly in his lap. "Ask of me whatever you will, my lady, and I will do it."

"You can't make that promise," she said. "You know you can't."

"I want to."

"I know." And she knew he did. He saw it in his face. The same thing she saw in the crypt. He genuinely cared about her, and wanted her to live. He wanted her to be happy. And now, just as it did then, a sense of reassurance swept over her.

"Stay with me tonight," she said softly.

His eyes widened. For once, he seemed to have forgotten what to say.

"I want you to stay with me," she reiterated, gentle but insistent.

He nodded wordlessly, and stood. She stood too. Their hands parted. Her heart thudded nervously in her chest as she led him from the library, through empty corridors, winding her way towards her bedchamber. She was grateful that they did not encounter anyone. She wasn't sure what excuse she could make up on the spot for why she was wandering Winterfell alone at night with Tyrion Lannister.

When they got to her door, she opened it and let him inside, leaning her back against it as she shut them both in.

Tyrion turned around and looked at her. He seemed as confused and uncertain about all this as she felt. She let go of a shaky breath trapped in her throat and quickly pulled off her chains and necklaces. They felt like weights around her neck. She dropped them onto a table.

"My lady," Tyrion murmured, so soft and so gentle that it disarmed her. "You don't have to do this."

"I know." Sansa wasn't about to do anything for any man unless she had calculated the possible repercussions and determined that it suited her. She didn't owe him anything for not being a monstrous person to her when they first married. She didn't owe him for fighting beside her in the crypt. But she liked the warmth that sparked in her chest when he was near now, and she knew this would be the last chance for her to feel that again.

She knelt, bringing herself to his height. "Will you help me with the buttons?"

Tyrion swallowed, then nodded and moved around behind her, his shaking fingers fumbling over the complicated trappings of her dress. "I'm very glad I didn't get drunk tonight," he half-joked. "That would have made this harder."

The night of their wedding he was completely soused, trying to drug himself into oblivion so he didn't have to think about anything that should happen. He hadn't succeeded. Sansa was glad this wasn't a repeat scenario.

When she felt the fabric around her loosen, she stood and pulled off her heavy woolen dress and over clothes. Cold winter air swept around her, leaving her only in her shift. She didn't shiver. The cold was as much a part of her now as the North itself.

She turned and knelt again, this time her own fingers methodically working over the buttons of Tyrion's overcoat. He was trembling more than she was. It surprised her.

"I should have thought that man with your extensive experience would be a little less nervous," she teased gently, eyes flashing to his.

He shuddered as she peeled off one layer and began on the next. "This is different. Very different."

"Because you aren't paying me at the end?"

He winced. "There are a lot of reasons, Sansa, but that isn't one of them."

She didn't reply, just dropped her attention back to his clothes and the task of removing them. As soon as the skin of his chest was exposed, goosebumps scattered over him and he shivered violently.

"Cold?" she asked.

"Here? Always." He gingerly lifted a hand to her bare shoulder and touched it lightly. "You aren't?"

"No." She took his hand and brought it to her cheek. He felt warm.

He swallowed again. "May I — may I kiss you?"

She studied his face for a moment. His droopy, puppy-dog face, half-hidden by head-hair and beard-hair. No one had ever asked her that before. She nodded, smiling just a little.

He slid his hand along her jaw, tipping her chin towards him as he leaned in. When his lips met hers, they were gentle and tentative. Those warm sparks she felt earlier burst into cheerful flames, spreading down her spine. He pulled back immediately and searched her face. "Is that alright?"

She nodded, a tiny little laugh escaping her. He grinned, taking courage, and leaned in to kiss her a little more enthusiastically. She let her long fingers tangle into his dark golden curls, savoring the soft feeling of them even as his kiss sent waves of reassuring happiness rolling through her.

Eventually she took his hand and led him to the bed. He was very cold now, she could tell, and the covers would warm him. He discarded the rest of his clothing before he slid in beneath the ample layers of fabric and fur. She did the same.

Without his touch, panic started to creep in at the edges. Her mind and body knew what was in bed with her now, and it locked up in anticipation of pain. Intrusive memories stabbed at her mind, making her heart burst into a frantic rhythm and her breath start to stagger unevenly through her chest.

But Tyrion was there, brushing her hair gently away from her face, asking again if he could kiss her. She looked into his deep brown eyes and saw no expectations, no heat. No lust. She just saw gentle regard and adoring concern. She nodded.

He didn't try to touch her at all while he kissed her. His hands didn't wander. His body didn't move in next to hers under the cover. He just cradled her face and let her figure out how she wanted to respond to the movement of his lips. Little by little, she began to relax.

His fingers brushed over her jaw and the place where her neck began, and asked if he could kiss her there. She agreed, and new flashes of astonishing pleasure burst from the place where his lips met her skin. He ministered to her neck, from her jaw to her collar. Her fingers lifted of their own accord and brushed along his bare shoulders, even as her breath came in gasps and her chest heaved.

Tyrion did nothing in a hurry. After a few minutes of this, he stopped and against took a moment to trace his fingers along her hairline. "Are you alright with this, my lady?"

Sansa nodded, bringing her hands up to both sides of his face, holding him and searching those eyes.

"Sansa, you are beautiful," he whispered. And she knew by the awe in his voice that it wasn't merely a compliment.

Silently, she took one of his hands and guided it to her breastbone, trailing it down to her navel. He looked at her questioningly, and she nodded. She wanted him to touch her. Her trust in him and this process was warming by degrees, and she was ready for a little more.

He leaned down to gently kiss her lips again, his fingertips lightly exploring the hills and valleys of her torso, pausing over scars and lingering on places that made her gasp beneath him.

He took his time, going slowly, asking before any advancement, or waiting until she prompted. Gradually he explored other areas too, his mouth discovering the areas south of her collar, his hand dipping even lower. Sansa's pleasure built with each touch and each ministering kiss. She felt absolutely worshipped, and just skirting the edge of control, but never out of it.

Tyrion kept the threat of traumatic memories away with his boundless kindness. In every moment, he made it only about her and what she wanted. And he made her feel things she had never experienced before, riding shockwaves of pleasure so intense they drew soft sounds of ecstasy from her unbidden. She didn't want it to stop. She wanted it to go on forever. If _this_ was what sex was like, she understood now why women voluntarily chose it.

And even when he did move closer, and she felt his body against hers, she didn't experience any but the faintest flicker of fear. She opened herself to him and tangled her hands into his hair and focused on his lips trailing adoration down her stomach even as he slipped so easily inside. She was well prepared to receive him, and found the sensation familiar, but without any of the pain or grief she'd learned to expect. It just felt good. And even then, he checked on her, keeping himself still while he asked if she was alright, if this was good, if she wanted him to keep going. Yes, yes, and yes. She was lost in him now, and he in her, and she'd never felt more alive or more loved.

When it was all over, they both wore a sheen of sweat that glowed in the candlelight, reflecting their sensuous, sublime efforts over the surface of their skin. They lay face to face, holding each other as their bodies slowly came down from the high, eyes soft.

Sansa played with a lock of his hair, marveling at how good she felt, and at the man who had caused it. He was nothing like the hero of her girlhood dreams. He wasn't tall and strong, young and handsome and glorious. Yet he managed to be exactly what she needed, and she couldn't imagine anyone else in his place.

"How am I going to let you go tomorrow after that?" she murmured, a shy smile unfolding.

"You asked me to stay the night, Sansa, not forever," he teased, his expression relaxed and content.

"And if I did?"

"Ah, don't tempt me. I don't think I could leave you for all the thrones in the world if you did," he sighed.

She tapped the place on his chest where he usually wore his broach. "Divided loyalties, remember? You have a duty to your queen. And I'm a Stark. I won't ask you to break you word."

"You are the only queen I want to serve now, my lady," he said, wrapping his hand around hers and holding it to his chest.

She momentarily mused with the idea of trying to make a claim on their former marriage. To say that he was her husband once, and though they'd not consummated that marriage before, it was certainly official now. But it was a fleeting wish, pleasant to think of, without any real tethers to reality.

Her thoughts drifted back to what they'd just done, and the potential consequences. She'd found ways to eliminate any probabilities Ramsey would successfully put a child in her, and she idly wondered if she ought to employ those methods this time too. Tyrion's dangerous seed was sown deep within now, threatening to bring about a baby formed in his image. She didn't care about having a dwarf child, but she could not afford to die in childbirth as his mother had. Not if Jon were to stay with South with his queen and Sansa had responsibility for the North. But if the baby were properly sized and formed, this might be the only chance she'd ever have to provide the North with an heir. She wouldn't need to explain to anyone where it came from, or why she didn't have a husband. Her people knew why she would never marry again. Ramsey's memory lingered with them too. They wouldn't question her. They wouldn't call the heir 'bastard'. It would be a Stark in name and inheritance.

If.

She'd have to assess that risk in the morning, but for now she was far too content to worry about it.

Right now she just wanted to hold and be held by this man who had shown her what it was to feel loved and adored, and forget that tomorrow existed at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

* * *

Varys stared hard at him as the carriage creaked and rolled through the countryside, heading towards the King's Road. Tyrion tried to ignore him, watching Winterfell and her ruined walls shrink further and further into the distance. The curl of smoke still rose from the piles of burning dead, reminding them of what they'd survived here. What they'd endured. An unusual stillness had settled into his thoughts, and a sorrow quietly pulsed in his heart like the last refrain of Podrick's song before the battle.

Varys was hard to ignore.

"What?" he finally snapped after a moment, shooting a glare at the too-familiar face of the eunuch.

Varys shrugged and shook his head. "Oh, nothing. I'm just wondering why a man who loves luxury and comfort seems so reluctant to leave the hostile world of the North."

It was possible that Varys already knew something of what transpired last night between Tyrion and Sansa Stark, but he wasn't about to give him the pleasure of confirming it.

Instead, he shook his head. "Are you really so devoid of feelings that you can't take a moment to mourn for the price that was paid here? Leaving in the middle of the recovery feels like abandonment. They have so much to do."

"I would have thought you'd be more eager to see your sister unseated than perform the tedious working of cleaning up corpses and rebuilding walls." Varys lifted a brow.

Tyrion sighed. He should be more eager for this, it was true.

But things were different now. So very different. The night of the battle had changed everything. He didn't care about Cersei's war anymore. He didn't care about the prestige and power of being Daenerys' Hand. He just wanted to settle down somewhere and finally make something meaningful of his life, since he had been granted a gift few who fought that night had. And it was worse now, after last night.

No one in his life had ever _wanted_ him. Only Jaime, really. But no woman had ever looked at him and seen a man worthy of being a husband, or a lover. Shae had probably been the closest, but he didn't trust any of his memories with her anymore. Even Daenerys herself had said he wasn't enough man for her. But Sansa…beautiful, broken, aloof, strong Sansa, she had fought beside him in the crypt, and she had asked him to stay with her. He was enough for her.

His heart begged him to abandon everything and remain at her side.

The pin on his coat had never felt so heavy.

Waking up with Sansa had been one of the best moments of his life. The night before too, but there was something even sweeter upon the waking. She'd kissed his cheek and charged him to survive, whatever the odds, and then she'd slipped out and he'd glimpsed her glorious body once more before she disappeared into her dressing room. Saying goodbye with everyone else there later was impossibly difficult, knowing what she'd said about never seeing each other again.

Tyrion knew he didn't deserve her. His whole miserable life held no accomplishments worthy of such a queen. He didn't even deserve to pine for her now, his once-wife. But she had given him access to that which he did not deserve, and he was thoroughly destroyed from within now because of it.

He _would_ convince Daenerys to give Sansa the North. It was the least he could do for her. Jon could marry Dany and they could give the North their independence. Who needed _seven_ kingdoms anyway. Six would be plenty to keep Dany on her toes.

"Two queens," Tyrion mused aloud. "One of ice, one of fire."

One who looked as if she were made of ice, but had fire inside her. And one who was kissed by fire on the outside, but had winter storming in her heart.

"Lady Stark isn't a queen, Tyrion," Varys reminded him, clear warning in his voice.

"She should be. And she could be." He turned to his companion. Varys would need to be an ally in this. "It should be the thanks that all of Westeros give to the North for their sacrifice, don't you think? Their freedom?"

"Oh, my poor friend," chided Varys. "You're smarter than that. Or have you really grown so foolish? If we let one kingdom go, soon Dorne will want to go next, and eventually, all of them."

"Almost none of the great houses are left anyway," Tyrion argued. "The Tyrells are dead. The Martells, nearly dead. The Tullys, the Aerons —"

"The Starks," Varys mused.

"The Starks are very much alive, or have you forgotten that we left two behind and we travel with two right now?"

"If Jon has children with Daenerys, they will be her heirs, not theirs. And you saw the boy. He won't be siring any heirs either. That leaves the daughters, and neither of them have marriage prospects in their future. This could be their final generation."

"Then the Lannisters are finished too, by that measure," Tyrion snapped. "We're here to dethrone my sister. You think Daenerys will let her live?"

"Have you and Jaime become eunuchs now, then?" Varys said, amused. "Both of you could still marry and have children."

Tyrion wondered very much if that were even possible for him. All the many, many women he'd been with, and none had ever gotten a bastard from him. Besides, it felt entirely possible that Cersei would find a way to kill him before this was all over. And as for Jaime… well, maybe there was still hope for Jaime.

"The Baratheons are gone," Varys mused to himself, still listing houses who were no longer. "The Greyjoys, unless Yara marries and produces an heir."

Tyrion thought of Gendry, and what Bran had said. The Baratheons might not be gone after all. If Dany felt so inclined, in gratitude for his service during both wars she could grant him his father's name and inherited lands. Though given her personal vendetta against that house, it might not be a prospect she'd consider. And Gendry was a smith. He didn't know the first thing about being a lord. But he might have a little she-wolf of his own to get him some pups, so maybe there was yet hope for that house.

And as for Jon and Daenerys...well, Tyrion knew what she'd said about never having any children but her dragons. It was a big concern regarding succession of the throne. But Varys didn't need to know that right now. Getting Cersei out mattered more at this point.

The game of politics had never felt so tiresome as it did to him right now. Houses and lords and titles and inheritances. None of it mattered.

By the Seven, he had to _get it together_ before they got to King's Landing. He had to set aside his feelings for the Lady of Winterfell and try to forget the surreal, perfect dream of spending the night at her side.

No matter what happened, he had to help Daenerys get her throne. Cersei had to die. The North must be given its independence. After those three tasks, he could try to get back to the North, somehow…and to Sansa.

* * *

**A/N:** Well guys, that's it! Just a quick little fic that will most certainly be made irrelevant by next Sunday when this all goes in a different direction. Hope you enjoyed!

**Comments:**

lonelyshipper\- I really loved writing them, and now I'm tempted to keep going too. I think you're right, it could be expanded! Thanks for reading!

mp523\- Ohhh! I forgot about that prophecy! It has been so long since I read the books. That would be fantastic to weave in. I think I will continue, after I see how things shake out at King's Landing. I have no idea how they're going to defeat Cersei. But you can bet that if Bronn gets Tyrion with that crossbow or he dies another way, I'll for sure be writing my own version of events here for satisfaction sake.

Maestro89 \- I think I will do 3 more chapters! But I'll wait until Sunday to see which direction it goes. Thanks for reading!

mfaerie32\- That's certainly what Dany believes, but the prophecy given by the maegi Mirri Maz Duur was that: "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child..."

Most of these conditions have been fulfilled in the books, though the show hasn't dealt with this prophecy the same way. Still, the fact that she is so convinced that her dragons are the only children she will ever have makes me believe she will turn out to be wrong about that. I actually think Jon will probably die, but Dany will find out she's got his kid cooking in there, defying her expectations. But we'll see, I could be very wrong about that.

Nevertheless, you raise an important point. She told Tyrion about that. A line has been added to reflect this knowledge!

Anahia \- I think more is coming! Haha I don't feel like I'm done with them yet. Thanks for your love!


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